Twelve Hours
by Loffyglu
Summary: In twelve hours, everything Eldes knew and loved would be snatched away from him, his family left in ruins. One-shot.


_A/N: So, I've got this headcanon in which Eldes is actually Michael's father, and that his death was actually faked; a double with a striking resemblance to Eldes was killed in front of his family, his features so badly ravished that closer inspection couldn't discern him from the real Eldes (thus eliminating the need for forensic examination), and the HQ Lab (including data about the in-progress Purification Chamber) burnt to the ground. Why? Well, basically, Greevil found out about Eldes' work and forced him to cease it and work for Cipher._

_This takes place... probably just after the events of Colosseum. Oh, also, this is just something I wrote at like three in the morning one day; I figured it'd be nice to post it here, too!_

* * *

A sky bathed in lavender, the signal of morning twilight. The silence of the approaching day, a tranquility the likes of which is appreciated only by the earliest of risers. The gentle breathing of a lover still deep in her dreams, an angelic form that signifies a peaceful slumber.

Eldes knew that this was the last he would ever experience of any of these things, his life soon to be confined to work in a lifeless cage of a lab entangled within acres of desert terrain. Whether it was his desire to savor every moment of the life about to be snatched away from him or sheer dread for what was to come that made him arise early on this particular morning, Eldes could not say. But his wakefulness now would not allow him to slip back into sleep.

The same could not be said for Lily. She still slumbered beside Eldes, coffee-brown hair scarcely covering her bare chest as it rose and fell in her sleep. In her blissful dreams, she couldn't possibly have been aware of the fate soon to befall Eldes.

The fate that he, by extension, would inflict on her and the rest of his family, as well.

Eldes leaned forward from his sitting position and held his head in his hands, willowy fingers combing his long, crimson hair. Twelve hours from now, the same woman lying beside him would cradle his dead body—or, at least, what she would believe to be his dead body—screaming as she would demand to know what would possess them to bring harm to a man who had never wronged them. Just behind her, two children would weep for their father; a little girl would bury her face in her hands, four years of life not enough to prepare her innocent eyes for the gruesome, bloodied scene, and a little boy would beg for his father to cling to life, his own nine years failing to teach him that death cannot be reversed. Meanwhile, masked men clad in cobalt armor would douse nearby lab equipment in gasoline and command their Houndoom to ignite the drenched machines.

Twelve hours from now, the Alkaev home—the Alkaev workplace, as well, with the Purification Chamber still a work in progress—would be reduced to charred rubble.

Twelve hours from now, Eldes—his family believing him to be dead, a döppelganger as his sacrificial lamb—would be deported to the middle of the desert, sinister chemicals and screeching Pokémon begging for mercy his only companions.

Twelve hours from now, Eldes would have betrayed the ones he loved to turn to a life that he believed ought not to have been called a life at all.

Removing his hands from his head, he noticed a moist sensation across his wrists. The twilight, dim as it was, provided enough light to prove that those were tears that had dripped from his eyes onto his arms. He shivered—from the morning cold lapping at his bare skin or from all-consuming fear?

That he could have even fathomed destroying his family like this—that Eldes' own father would have given these orders—sickened Eldes to the core. He wanted to cry out, to scream, to beg Lugia above to save him from having to perform such a wretched deed….

But he didn't, lest he would have awakened Lily. Practice, he grimly reflected, for the years to come. He would have to become _quite_ adept at bottling his emotions.

That said, he still had twelve hours left.

And in those twelve hours, he thought as he leaned down to leave a gentle kiss upon Lily's forehead, he could at least ensure his family wouldn't be left with any doubts that their husband, their father, and best friend loved them more than anything else in the world.


End file.
